Read Proverbs Slowly. Take a Year Over It
This morning, at Trinity Church Scarborough, we continued our preaching series in the book of Proverbs, looking at Proverbs 25-29.
This morning, at Trinity Church Scarborough, we continued our preaching series in the book of Proverbs, looking at Proverbs 25-29.
Is the idea of an afterlife new to the New Testament? In fact, there is hope of life after death even as far back as the Joseph narratives in the book of Genesis.
This is not a long post, but I've just seen something I've never seen before.
Matthew 12:1-14 illustrates and adds colour to Matthew 11:28-30.
Matthew 11:28-30 are some of the most beautiful words in the New Testament:
At Trinity Church Scarborough, we're preaching through Proverbs throughout the autumn.It's not a book I've ever studied in any detail, so I've taken a step back, read a few things others have written, and collected thoughts I've had over the years as I've read through Proverbs as part of my own personal Bible reading. I wanted somewhere to jot down the things I've learnt, so I can refer to it later, and thought this public space would be good as it may help others too.
Here's a detail I've just noticed, and rather love.
Psalm 95:7 in the NIV reads as follows:
"For he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture
and the flock under his care."
Take that phrase "flock under his care" and look more closely.
וְצֹ֣אן יָד֑וֹ
Literally "the flock of his hand".
I'm a big fan of Bruce Waltke's commentary on Genesis. He does a great job at holding together two tasks that are vital. It's easy to lose one whilst trying to do the other. He both pays attention to the narrative craft of Genesis, and at the same time tracks the overall storyline of Genesis and what the book as a whole is communicating.
In November, I ran a series of blog posts on the book of Revelation. Preparing to preach it, some day, I've been trying to get to know the book, to work out how it functions, how it communicates, and so on. I've wanted to do this deductively at first, which means reading the text lots and lots of times, and noticing things.
So far, I've had 3 posts:
This post follows on from two previous posts on the book of Revelation. In the previous posts I argued that the vision of Revelation 4-22 is telling a single, coherent story, and then explained how the first 3 chapters of the book connect to what follows. That structure indicates that it is important to be clear of the messages given in Revelation 2-3 if we are to hear Revelation 4-22 correctly. This post attempts to draw out those messages to the 7 churches, so we can tune in correctly to the visions that follow.
The other day, I wrote about my reading through the book of Revelation, as I seek to work out the kind of book and how it communicates. This post follows on from that, and looks at how Revelation 1-3 connects with Revelation 4-22. Where do the letters fit in? What is the structure of the book as a whole?
I've been reading through the book of Revelation, asking myself what kind of book it is, and how we are meant to read it to hear its message. I've found myself wondering if I've been asking the wrong questions. I used to see the most important step in interpreting Revelation to be finding the key to map it onto the real world. I now wonder if the most important step is to enter into and follow the story. Stories have power to teach without needing to be an exact allegory.